Los Angeles Rams quarterback Case Keenum walks to the bench as Detroit Lions defensive tackle Tyrunn Walker and teammates celebrate after stopping the Rams at the goal line on fourth down during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)

DETROIT >> A slew of buses sat outside Ford Field on Sunday to transport a solemn group of Rams to Detroit Metro Airport. There, a charter plane was awaiting them amid the gray clouds and stillness of a mid-October evening on Michigan’s lower peninsula.

The destination was of no concern. Or significance really.

It doesn’t really matter much.

Six games into their triumphant return home to Los Angeles, it’s becoming painfully and frustratingly clear that all roads and flight patterns lead to the exact same place for the Rams. Head first into a brick wall separating them from who they really are and what they aspire to be.

The Rams undoubtedly want to be a real player in the National Football League. A complete, balanced group for whom winning is the norm and losing an occasional blip on the screen.

That’s what they want to be.

What they are, we learned once again in a bitterly frustrating 31-28 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday, is a team that can’t quite find the right pieces to complete the puzzle. Not consistently, any way. And after watching them labor ever so taxingly even during their three victories this season, we’d be hard pressed to remember a moment in which everything was clicking for them at the same time.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Maybe this is who the Rams will always be under Jeff Fisher. Now in his fifth season, he’s yet to lead the Rams to a winning season. And after starting this year 3-1, the Rams are right back where they’ve always been after losing their last two games. Stuck in the quick sand of .500. Flailing away again in no man’s land.

Maybe that’s just their destiny under Fisher. And why the Rams should not be in a hurry to renew their vows with him when his contract runs out at the end of the season.

“They’re disappointed, as they should be,” Fisher said of the Rams. “I’m disappointed, as I should be. The staff is disappointed. We couldn’t make that play that we needed to.”

How many times can we bear hearing that same tired response?

When is enough is enough of incomplete football and sloppy play and silly penalties and bone-crushing turnovers?

“I’ve been here since 2010, this is my seventh season,” said Rodger Saffold, whose seen a whole bunch of losing and misery over those seven years. “I want this team to succeed more than anything. More than myself. So of course this hurts.”

As hard as they try, now matter what they change from players to schemes, the end game always seems the same.

On Sunday it didn’t matter that Case Keenum had a career day with 321 yards passing and three touchdowns and at one point brilliantly completed 19 straight passes.

Or that Kenny Britt turned into Calvin Johnson by grabbing seven passes for 136 yards, including a fiercely fought 9-yard touchdown in which he bull-rushed a group of Lions tacklers over the goal line.

As good as Keenum was, when it came right down to it he threw an ill-advised pass into triple coverage for a game-ending interception.

And as fantastic as Britt was, he wasn’t able to get the ball over the goal line late in the second quarter with the Rams looking to take a touchdown-lead over the Lions into intermission. That led to the Rams going for it on fourth down inches away from the goal line rather than kick the field goal to take the lead. But Todd Gurley got stuffed behind the line of scrimmage, sending the Rams to the locker room without a score. The three points they snickered at in favor of going for the touchdown ended up being the winning margin for the Lions.

See how this works out?

Even when things are going good, as they were for Keenum and Britt and an offense that moved up and down the field with ease Sunday, somehow, some way the Rams find a way to shoot themselves in the foot.

“I know that sounds like a broken record from last week, but I mean, we had the ball in our hands with a chance to go win the game and we didn’t,” Keenum said. “That’s frustrating.”

One step forward two steps back.

Like the defense not being able to drive a stake in the Lions after the offense built a 28-21 lead at the start of the fourth quarter.

The same defense that has carried the Rams to their three wins was unable to answer the call.

On the touchdown drive the Lions mounted to tie the score, the Rams couldn’t turn the Lions away on four third-down situations. The result was an eight-play, 84-yard drive that ended with Golden Tate hauling in a 23-yard touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to tie the score at 28-28.

“We can’t get to the quarterback,” Aaron Donald said, shaking his head. He’s back there all day, passing the ball, making plays.”

And with a chance to get the ball back for the offense – or make a stand and force overtime – the Rams allowed a nine-play, 43-yard drive in which Matt Prater kicked a 34-yard field goal to make it 31-28.

“Offense puts 28 points on the board and we couldn’t stop the opponent,” Donald said, disappointedly.

That seems to be the Rams reality. It’s why they’ve been mired in mediocrity for years.

They’ll land in London on Monday morning, but the location is of no significance. The Rams find themselves stuck in no man’s land again at .500.

Vincent Bonsignore is an NFL columnist for the Southern California News Group. Having covered the Los Angeles sports scene for more than two decades, Bonsignore has emerged as one of the leading voices on the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, the NFL and NFL relocation.

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